Rain Over Kirkwall
by EvanescingSky
Summary: As Kirkwall burns, Hawke says a very painful goodbye.


Rain fell over Kirkwall.

Rain pattered down on the fires burning, tamped down the soot rising on the air, drove gray rivulets down the windows and walls. Rain sluiced through the gutters, dragging with it blood, soot, refuse. Rain fell over the smote remains of the chantry, down over the Viscount's Keep, over Lowtown and Hightown, and the filthy water seeped down into Darktown. Rain steadily darkened Hawke's hair as she stood before the steps of the storied old chantry in a town removed enough from Kirkwall that chaos had not reached them yet, but not far enough that the Champion felt safe.

It had been raining in the Free Marches for days.

"You're leaving." Sebastian had said it the moment he saw her. Perhaps it wasn't hard to guess. Perhaps he had known in his heart this moment was coming. There was a look in his eye that made her think he was questioning his own decision to stay.

"I have to," she said, tilting her face up to him. Rain dripped down her face, fat drops sliding from her hair down into her eyes. She passed a hand over her face, dashing the water away. "I can't go back to Kirkwall. I…I can't go back."

"The Templars cannot blame you for what happened to Knight-Commander Meredith," Sebastian disagreed. "They saw the red lyrium themselves, her own captain refused to follow her orders."

"I don't know that, and I don't trust them," she said. "It would be easy to try to cover up the Knight-Commander's madness by blaming me. And even if it wasn't for that…" She trailed off and shook her head. "I've been in Kirkwall too long. Too much has happened. I admire your resiliency, to go back, but I can't. And there are other things. I promised Bethany I would catch up with her in Ferelden. We've been apart too long, there are things we must discuss."

"What about your home in Kirkwall?"

"I've left it to Uncle Gamlen and Charade," she said. The conversation passed like reading off a script: Sebastian supplying every reason she might have not to leave the city, and Hawke delivering her prepared responses. "They're Amells too; it belongs to them as much as me." She breathed deeply, preparing to tell him she had come to say goodbye, but he burst out before she could.

"Don't leave, Hawke!" Sebastian's fingers curled and flexed and she could see the tension in his shoulders. "You don't have to go. You can stay here, with us." _With me. _Hawke breathed a quiet sigh and looked down at the stairs.

"I can't," she said. "I've thought about it every way that I can. I just…can't do that. And I can't abandon Bethany to the Grey Wardens forever. I promised I would find her in Ferelden after we sent her back there. She's my sister. I need to find her, talk to her. Help her, if I can." The rain splashed against puddles stretching across the streets and plinked against the stones lining the streets.

"I suppose I can't compete with your family."

"You _are_ my family, Sebastian," Hawke insisted, putting a foot up on the bottom stair. "My-But surely you can see why I can't stay in Kirkwall!" She bit her lip hard, lifting her puppy dog eyes up to him, gentle begging in the gray-blue depths, and then said lowly, urgently, "Come with me." It was a something she had sworn she wouldn't ask of him, but she found then, looking up at him in the rain, that she couldn't walk away without posing it. If Sebastian would let her, she would whisk him away from this terrible place of blood and grief and death, take him back to Ferelden, or elsewhere in the Free Marches, or _anywhere_ that wasn't Kirkwall. She could never give him a prince's life, but she would take care of him in every way that she could.

"I can't, Hawke," he stressed, knotting his fingers together. "I took vows to the Chantry, I have a commitment. And Kirkwall is in desperate need." Hawke lowered her gaze.

"I understand," she said. She stepped up at the same time Sebastian came down, and they embraced tightly on the steps. "I'll miss you, Bash," she whispered, arms wrapped around his waist.

"I'll—miss you too," he said, the catch in his throat audible. Hawke squeezed him, thinking if she could just hold on, they wouldn't have to say goodbye. Out from under the eaves, the rain began to dampen Sebastian's shoulders. Hawke breathed deeply, trying to fix the feel of him in her arms, the scent of him, the warmth of his closeness, in her memory, that she might carry it with her across the Waking Sea.

"Can I kiss you goodbye?" She spoke so quietly that Sebastian almost did not hear her over the constant murmur of the rain. After a pause of consideration, he nodded jerkily, and they pulled back. Hawke regarded him for several heartbeats, and he was sure she could hear the sound, betraying his desire to follow her out of the city. Around her throat, between layers of clothing and mail, he caught a glimpse of a chain around her neck. Then she cupped his face in one hand and leaned in. She closed her eyes and kissed him as gently as the morning rays of sun touched the sky. Sebastian shut his eyes and held still, gripping her shoulders as if he could hold her there. "Walk in the light, Bash," she said.

"And you," he answered, his hands tightening on her shoulders as she shifted to draw back. "I believe the Maker will bring us together again someday." In the cloudy light, his eyes looked glassy, but she couldn't be sure it wasn't just the rain. If he cried, she didn't know what she would do. Varric always said her will was made of jelly when it came to Sebastian Vael.

"I will pray for it," Hawke said, despite her continued agnosticism. If there was a Maker out there, she would gladly call upon them to be reunited with Sebastian. Their heartbeats ticked by in more silence, as Hawke gathered herself to walk away from Sebastian.

"I will light a candle for your safe travel," Sebastian said. Her arms rested against his hips and the splendid blue of his eyes felt like a spell, holding her fast.

"I will try to light one for you as well," she promised. "You said you found peace in the Chantry. I hope that is still so."

"The Maker has a plan for all of us," he replied. "It seems that yours is destined to be unusual." Hawke let out a quiet breath and closed her eyes briefly. There was too much truth in that; after the events of the last nearly eight years, the evidence was insurmountable. She freed the scarf from her armor and tied it around Sebastian's neck, taking care to arrange it neatly and tuck the ends away. He did not remark on the slight shake in her hands.

_I wish it were different_, she wanted to say. Why could the Maker's plan, if it existed, not include Sebastian by her side? What had she fought for, all those years, for it to end with her fleeing the city in the rain and infamy, leaving behind her home, her friends, her husband?

She went away slowly, stepping back, down, taking his hands from her shoulders. She pressed her lips most properly to his chilled knuckles, and set her feet back on the street. Her fingers rubbed over the ring on his right hand. How she had agonized over it! She had poured over the jewelry she had hung onto from the Deep Roads expedition, finely crafted treasures, pried from the thaigs of long-dead dwarven nobles, but it had felt so impersonal. She had even gone through her mother's box, thinking there was something there Leandra might have given her for the purpose, but she found nothing that seemed appropriate. In the end, she had enlisted a goldsmith and overseen every step of its construction, providing the gems herself from amongst the Deep Roads boon. She took care that it was understated, nothing that might overly embarrass a lay brother, but she had not been able to resist embedding three choice diamonds into it. Their blue tint reminded her of Sebastian's clear eyes and she had implored him to take it as an expression of her own vanity, rather than his.

"Don't catch a cold," she said. "Take care of yourself."

"And you," he said. He bit his lip, as if he meant to say something else, but did not. She mounted the horse and turned it round towards the city gates. She paused, looking at her love, radiant even in the rain, even in the tattered remains of that hellish city, even in his grief. Her heart throbbed with a pain that would not be soothed away, and she squeezed the reins like they connected her to the earth.

"Sebastian," she said to him, raising her voice to be heard over the rain. It was a bad idea, it was something she should keep to herself, but she felt as she had before they faced down with the Templars in the Circle—that they were words she _had_ to say.

"Yes, Hawke?" She needed no mage powers to tell he wanted to hear she had changed her mind. Rather than answering, she just sat there, looking at him, working the reins between her hands.

"I'm glad to have met you." In the end, she was a coward, or perhaps wise, and backed away from what she had meant to say when first she said his name. "If I don't see you again…I want you to know that." She touched her collarbone, where hung the chain on which she kept her own ring, wanting Sebastian to know she would wear it always.

"We _will_ see each other again," Sebastian said, lifting his chin. Rain spattered against his face, but he held her stare. "And I will be glad for it, as I am glad to have known you." Hawke gave him a sharp nod, and straightened up on her horse.

"Goodbye, Sebastian," she said.

"Goodbye, Felicity," he said. "Until we walk in Andraste's grace once again." Hawke swallowed, forcing down something hard in her throat. She gave Sebastian another nod, and nudged the horse to movement, taking off at a trot towards the gates. Sebastian's eyes were like a brand against her back, burning through her cloak, through her mail, searing against her flesh, scarring. Sebastian's mark would never leave her, it was part of her—and she did not regret it, no matter how badly it hurt.

Rain fell over Kirkwall and the Free Marches, drenching the brothers and sisters of the Chantry who dared to venture out. Rain over Kirkwall, mixing with tears on the Champion's face. Rain, rain over Kirkwall, and the bitter grief of a city lost rising up in a wordless, keening cry. Rain—a god weeps for his people.


End file.
